Promoting gender equality at work is not only a matter of rights; it is the smart thing to do from the perspective of inclusive growth. The Nordic region is a case in point, as it has come to represent the 11th largest economy in the world, not despite policy commitments to gender equality and social justice, but because of it.

The Nordic countries have robust economies and good living conditions, where both women and men have high labour force participation rates. However, the gender pay gap is persistent and occupational segregation continues to hinder gender equality.

The Nordic Gender Effect at Work briefs share the collective Nordic experience in investing in gender equality including parental leave, childcare, flexible work arrangements, leadership and equal opportunities at work, and seek to make further progress through cooperation.

The report, written in Swedish and titled “Hat och hot på nätet – en kartläggning av den rättsliga regleringen i Norden från ett jämställdhets-perspektiv”, shows that online hate speech targets women and men to similar extents. However, there are important differences in the types of violations women and men experience. Men are more likely to fall victim to attacks involving threats of violence and references to their profession and competence, whereas women are more likely to experience sexist and sexually charged offences that are of more personal than occupational nature.

The study shows that the hate crime legislation is similar across the Nordic region. Hate speech targeting certain defined groups is illegal in all Nordic countries. However, gender falls outside the realm of legal protection in all Nordic countries, although the Finnish legislation theoretically allows for its inclusion. There is troubling uncertainty in the Nordic countries regarding how the hate crimes legislation should be applied and where to draw the line between hate speech and freedom of expression, and consequently the legal provisions are not used nearly as often as theoretically possible. Consequently, the legal protection that the groups covered by the legislation can count on in real life is very limited, and for victims of gender-based hate speech, it is non-existent. This finding should be considered in relation to the research showing that online hate speech targeting women is largely gender based.

Moa Bladini, lauthor of the report and senior lecturer in criminal law at the University of Gothenburg.

Moa Bladini, lektor i straffrätt vid Göteborgs universitet, är rapportförfattare.

This is a fact sheet about the public sphere in the Nordic countries.

The public sphere in the Nordic countries is still not for everyone. Sexist advertising, the invisibility of some groups in the media and online hate
speech risk silencing many voices. However, examples of progress and solutions do exist.

How can the public sphere become a place for everyone?

Gender equality in the labour market is a key topic in the Nordic cooperation on gender equality. As a follow up to two earlier reports on part-time work this third report is an introductory study to part-time work and gender in the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland Islands.

The aim is to map what is known about part-time work, and where possible, explain working patterns in these areas. The report gives an overview of the labour markets of the three areas and introduces part-time work based on existing data.

The report also present findings from an exploratory study with women who work part-time in the Faroe Islands. Erika Anne Hayfield, PhD, Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at the University of the Faroe Islands, Rógvi Olavson, MSc Sociology and Lív Patursson, MSc Gender Studies wrote the report on request by NIKK, for the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Nordic dads take more parental leave than the international average. Yet the rates vary across the Nordic countries and despite many advances in gender equality, mothers continue to spend more time with their children than fathers do. This factsheet from NIKK explains what the parental insurance system looks like in the Nordic countries and how its design affects fathers’ use of it.

There is an increasing pressure on media to step up and take measures to ensure women’s access to the media industry and to combat gender stereotypes. The UN member states committed to this already in 1995 in the Beijing Platform for Action, but how gender equal is the media? The Nordic region is well known for having gender equality as a hallmark in society. In the media sector, however, the male dominance persists in many areas, both in the industry itself and in the output. In 2014, Nordicom – a knowledge centre for media and communication research – initiated the project Nordic Gender & Media Forum, a platform for discussion on gender equality in media. The platform is compiling sexdisaggregated statistics for the Nordic media industry (film, journalism, advertising and computer games). These data serve as a knowledge base for discussion on good gender practices in the media in the Nordic countries.

The full compilation of data can be found at the Nordicom website, Media trends.Nordic Gender & Media Forum is also about collecting good practices and broadening the meaning of gender equality by connecting with other Nordic projects on gender, such as Queering Sapmi and the work on combatting sexualised hate speech conducted by a Norwegian resource centre for men, Reform. About 30 examples of good practices from the Nordic region are included in an anthology (December 2014).

Gender equality in the labour market is a key topic in the Nordic cooperation on gender equality. The Nordic Council of Ministers has asked NIKK, Nordic Information on Gender, to coordinate the project Part-Time Work in the Nordic Region. The aim of the project is to shed light on and analyse part-time work in the Nordic region, develop reports and  arrange conferences.

During the Icelandic presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2014, the project followed up the earlier study Part-Time Work in the Nordic Region: Part-time work, gender and economic  distribution in the Nordic countries. This second report is a research overview on the arguments used to explain the relation between part-time work and gender in the Nordic countries. Further, the report describe relevant measures taken by different actors in the labour  market and the political sphere in order to reduce foremost women´s part-time work. The researchers Ida Drange and Cathrine Egeland wrote the report on a request by NIKK.

The Nordic countries are facing numerous challenges, some of which are specific to the more peripheral areas. Examples include changed living conditions in the wake of global changes, economic regression, loss of employment opportunities, in particular in traditionally male-dominated occupations, and depopulation, as young people, and especially women, are moving away to more urbanised areas to study or find a job.

Many of the challenges affect men and women differently, and men and women also have different strategies to handle them. This is found in a mapping by EDGE, Center for Equality, Diversity and Gender, at Aalborg University.

Women work part time to a much greater extent
than men, and this pattern can be found in all Nordic countries. The project Part-Time Work in the Nordic Region took a close look at the
vast gender inequalities in relation to part-time employment. This fact sheet discusses the results and some challenges for the future.